


payment in kind

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationship, Additional Warnings Apply, Creepy, Dark, Domestic Violence, Rape/Non-con References, i apologize for everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even as thralls, Willie and Maggie take care of each other, after a fashion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	payment in kind

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Please, please heed the warnings in the tags.

They are not dead, but they are not living; they are shadows, made of darkness without depth. Nothing of their other lives remains. But sometimes after the worst of it, when the noise dies down and the master's footsteps echo down the stairs, Willie will creep into her room and hold her hand and stroke her hair and say, "Maggie, Maggie," over and over, like her name is a spell to ward off evil. Her cold fingers cling to his as she weeps, sweet little Maggie Evans, crying for a life she has been ordered to forget. He will never call her Josette in these moments, not even when she begs him to, for fear that the master will know. That name is more of a betrayal than he can stand. 

He cannot always protect her, but still he makes excuses when her deadened fingers drop the gifts the master brings her, when she cries out at half-formed memories of the girl she used to be. 

She is barely alive, but she does what she can for him, too, in her own ways. She brings him a cold cloth for his bruises; she sings off-key while she wipes away the blood. And sometimes when the master is loud and angry and ready to strike, she distracts him, opening her little music box so that its song drifts eerily through the house, taking the master's attention away from Willie and all his failures. The master will go to her, every time. And every time, Willie will let it happen; he will let her protect him. It is only payment in kind.


End file.
